Members Present: President Timothy Kaufman-Osborn; Program Chair Amy Bridges; Treasurer Gilbert St. Clair; Recording Secretary Peregrine Schwartz-Shea; Council Members Manuel Avalos, Mary Caputi, Bill Haltom, Ron Kahn, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, Michael McCann, Barbara Morris, Barbara Norrander, Michelle Saint-Germain, Andrea Simpson, Raphael Sonenshein, Ron Schmidt, Clive Thomas

Members Absent: Diana Dwyre; Victor James

Ex-Officio Members Present: Harold Clarke and Ken Godwin, PRQ Editors; Ron Hrebenar, PRQ Managing Editor; and Executive Director Elizabeth Moulds.

Guests Present: Lynda Roberts, PRQ Coordinator and Office Support; Michael Brintnall, Executive Director APSA

Introductions: Lynda Roberts and Michael Brintnall were introduced.

Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Tim Kaufman-Osborn at 8:05 am.

I. APPROVAL OF THE MINUES

The minutes of the August 31, 2001 Executive Council meeting in San Francisco were corrected to include Raphael Sonenshein as present. The corrected minutes were then approved.

II. NEW BUSINESS, TIME CERTAIN ITEM

WPSA Presidency: Amy Bridges' Resignation

Program chair and president-elect Amy Bridges has elected not to serve as WPSA president. Current president Timothy Kaufman-Osborn thanked Amy for her work as Program Chair.

According to Article 10 section 2a of the bylaws:
…If the person who is serving as the Vice-President is unable or unwilling to serve as President… the immediate past President of the Association shall be invited to assume the duties of the President.…

Tim has graciously agreed to serve for a second year. The Council endorsed this extension of his term.

III. REPORTS

A. Executive Directors Report: Elizabeth Moulds

Betty reported that the time since the last meeting in August had been spent getting ready for the Long Beach conference. There were significant changes in the process. Now all convention financial arrangements are handled at Sacramento. This is a permanent change that will considerably reduce the burden on local arrangements chairs.

Another important change is that there is now full web conversion for members' pre-registration. This was very successful: members like it; it is worth it in terms of knowing more reliably who will be attending the convention; participants can be contacted directly if they need to register at an overflow hotel.

This year there was partial web conversion for the program; it will be done completely using the web for next year; Bill Haltom, Denver Local Arrangements, and Elsa Favila will be using a model developed by the APSA. Thus the final program for Denver will be created in Sacramento.

Future conventions: Dan Smith, Denver local arrangements chair reports that the Denver Hyatt is a good location. The Portland convention documents have been signed - the Marriott fronting the river is a very good location. For 2005, Betty reports that San Francisco is still unaffordable even post 9-11.

Executive director position: Despite healthy increments in the budget, there is not yet enough regular revenue, long term, for an executive director position. The association has stayed within its administrative budget: council expenses, staff, printing, etc. The other part of the budget is the convention budget. Staffing costs were very high this year because of conversion to web. In terms of revenues, dues drive revenues which, in turn, depend on the conference site. The meeting in Las Vegas was huge and dues went up. The meeting here is smaller and therefore total dues will be smaller; initial projections of $24,000 net compared to $33,000 in Las Vegas. Whenever substantial numbers of participants can drive to a conference site (e.g., Los Angeles) it is more difficult to predict attendance.

We are collecting data on these issues for strategic planning re finances. We need to regularize and anticipate needs in order to hire an executive director. Currently, Betty's contribution counts as her professional service and she has an administrative salary. When her president retires, it is likely that she will go back to her department and will need to buy out courses.

Summer plans: convention siting 2005; full technical web conversion of program; negotiating details of the MOU renewal with University of Utah.

B. Program Chair's Report: Amy Bridges

Amy reported the incredible team effort to put the program together, particularly thanking Elsa Favila for her work on the web site, but also Betty, Tim, and the section chairs.

The total number of panels was 152. There were 653 pre-registrations.

C. Local Arrangements Long Beach Convention: Ron Schmidt

Ron welcomed all to Long Beach and reported that WPSA conference had filled the hotel. This is very important since then the association doesn't have to pay room charges for panel rooms. The over-flow hotel, 8 blocks away is The Renaissance.

Tim gave many thanks to Ron for his excellent work.

D. Local Arrangements Denver 2003: Elizabeth Moulds

Local Arrangements Chair for Denver is Dan Smith who couldn't attend because his new baby is about to arrive. Andy Bush, University of Denver, will be helping Dan Smith. The dates for Denver are March 27-29, Thursday through Saturday at the Hyatt-Regency.

E. Membership report: Elizabeth Moulds

Membership report: Betty thanked Lynda Roberts for the information and reminded the Executive Committee of the relationship between the University of Utah which publishes PRQ and the association. The numbers reveal the impact of the Las Vegas convention with an increase of 107 individual members; this growth in individual membership is sizeable. 58% of membership is in the region, with the remainder outside.

Institutional membership is down 44. Institutional memberships are library subscriptions. The loss of 44 is part of a trend shared by most professional journals. APSR has faced the same problem. PRQ is still a deal for libraries because institutional membership is only $50. PRQ will become part of JSTOR but because there is a "fire wall" of three years this should not affect institutional membership.

F. Financial report: Gil St. Clair

Gil gave the report. He noted that he plans to change next year's report to produce a clearer distinction between association and convention accounting, e.g., fees, insurance, FICA taxes.

G. PRQ: Harold Clarke and Ken Godwin

Last August both Harold and Ken went to new, but different, universities--Harold to University of Texas at Dallas and Ken to University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The coordination has worked well based on weekly, virtual meetings with editors and interns on email and over the phone.

PRQ will soon become a member of JSTOR. Membership at JSTOR is especially important during this time of declining of library subscriptions. It is very important in the long run in terms of visibility and citations.

Unlike last year, there will be no reception for PRQ here at Long Beach but will be a reception in Boston for the APSA. Harold reported statistics on manuscripts received, rejected, accepted, and revise-resubmits for 2001. The acceptance rate is 25-28%.

The editors want to emphasize that the maximum length of the manuscript is 30 pages. Appendices can be put on authors' personal web sites. It is useful to suggest reviewers especially if the work is unconventional. There was some discussion of whether the page length requirement differentially affects fields. Harold responded that review article can be longer and increasing the size of PRQ increases production costs.

The turn-around time at PRQ has been quick: less than 95 days on over 90% of the manuscripts. A difficulty faced by editors is that more and more people don't want to review.

The PRQ now has a best paper award for the best article published in a calendar year by PRQ. There is a $1000 award. This year the award went to David Leal and Michael Jones-Correa for Political Participation: Does Religion Matter? The PRQ Award Committee was chaired by Michael Alvarez. The editors hope the award will be continued with the new editors.

The editors are also trying to increase submissions in the areas of in IR and comparative. There are lots of submissions in American, and judicial politics.

Considerable discussion followed re the PRQ Award: Should this award be listed with WPSA awards? The editors indicated that would be ideal. Tim observed that the award is a good idea but we need to think carefully about its status. Is it purely a PRQ award or is it part of WPSA? The latter would take a majority vote to alter current policy. Current policy requires a selection committee that, technically, is chosen by the WPSA President. Also, if the prize is permanent, is WPSA committed on an ongoing basis? After all there is a considerable discrepancy in prize money, $1000 versus $250 for the other awards. And does the current practice commit the next set of editors?

Tim suggested a committee to produce a formal proposal on these issues including himself, Ken Godwin, Harold Clarke, and Elizabeth Moulds.

Considerable discussion followed re the submissions to PRQ: Amy Bridges noted that the WPSA conference is known for its strength in political theory, and there is the day-long pre-meeting for feminist theory. She asked: Can we get PRQ to reflect the meeting? She suggested the editors go to the section chairs to recruit papers.

Michelle St. Germain suggested email encouragement for submission for other types of papers, say in comparative and IR. WPSA has approximately 70% of the membership emails, which Betty will share with the editors. Ron Schmidt also seconded the idea of trying to get the journal to reflect the convention. Should race and ethnicity be added to the reported categories? There were 40 people at pre-convention on Latino politics. Where are those papers going now? Ken Godwin responded that he met with Latino caucus and has been encouraging submissions.

Tim noted that all recipients of the best paper awards are encouraged to submit to PRQ; it is guaranteed that the papers will be published though, as worked out when Lynn Ragsdale was editor, revisions may be required. The letter to prize winners now includes specific language on the nature of the review process. None of the award winners submitted this year.

Lynda Roberts Report: Lynda reported considerable changes at the production end. Three years ago she had to get a new type setter, a new copy editor, and production was 2-3 weeks behind. Much has improved problems, manage the budget, and work to keep costs low. This is reflected in the journal price of only $30. Lynda also manages the data base of subscribes/members. Individual membership is holding steady at 2200. There are fluctuations, particularly among students. She keeps track of dues that come in to make sure that WPSA gets every penny owed. The JSTOR agreement has been signed. Every back issue since 1948 will be available except for one missing issue (March of 1982).

H. Nominating Committee Report: Julie Novkov
Since the August meeting, Julie Novkov and the committee have now filled the last crucial spot for Vice President and Program Chair, 2003-2004, Barbara Norrander, University of Arizona.

WPSA Nominating Committee Slate
For Election at the March 2002 Membership Business Meeting

Vice-President and Program Chair 2003-2004
Barbara Norrander, University of Arizona

Treasurer 2003-2006
Gilbert St. Clair, University of New Mexico

Executive Council 2003-2006
Region A
Howard Gilman, University of Southern California
Joel Kassiola, San Francisco State University
Region B
David Camacho, Northern Arizona State University
Region C
Susan Burgess, Ohio University

Executive Council 2002-2003 (to fill the remainder of Stephenie Witt's term)
Region C
Clive Thomas, University of Alaska

I. Membership Committee Report: Michael Alvarez
No report submitted. Michael Alvarez, chair of the membership committee, will be at the September Boston Meeting to report on ideas for recruiting more members.

J. Professional Development Committee: Ron Kahn

A letter to Tim from the committee chair, Ron Kahn, is attached to the end of these minutes.

Ron reported on a panel held at the 2001 Meetings in Las Vegas entitled, "How Can the WPSA Help Professional Development of Its Members?" That panel, in addition to a forum held at the 2000 Meetings in San Jose, resulted in a number of ideas. Those attending agreed that professional development should target new scholar-teachers and mature scholar teachers at non-Ph.D. granting institutions.

There was discussion about the possibility of a workshop for chairs in the region. APSA has sessions for department chairs the day before the conference begins. The association might consider a smaller version of this because there are chairs in the local region who can't afford to go to APSA. This could have a positive impact on membership. Manuel Avalos mentioned that Lynda Davis of PFF (Preparing Future Faculty) has attempted to try to socialize graduate students re career. PFF funds are starting to wrap up. One possibility is workshops before or after panels or late in the afternoon before the reception.

IV. OLD BUSINESS

A. Site for Meeting in 2005: Elizabeth Moulds

Hotel costs in San Francisco are $200 and above for our March date, which is not in the ball park for WPSA members. APSA can negotiate lower costs because of its size and Labor Day meeting dates. Betty will pursue the Monterey option though the initially quoted prices are a bit high at $155 / $169 and transportation is awkward - $32 one way and about an hour. Sacramento would be willing to be local host, though hotel prices there are affected by lobbyists.

There was considerable discussion about Oakland as a possibility. It is an underrated city with considerable attractions: wine country; BART access to San Francisco; safer than people might think; convenient to fly to; nice museum, city center, and live entertainment. Restaurant quality and quantity would need to be determined. The National Conference of Black Political Scientists recently met there. As local arrangements chair, Eric Schickler, Berkeley, was suggested. Betty will gather more information about Oakland.

The significance of the convention revenues to the future of the association should be remembered. The association needs popular venues. The Southern has permanently moved to New Orleans and the Midwestern is permanently at Chicago. The Southwest moves back and forth between San Antonio and New Orleans.

B. JSTOR Inclusion of PRQ: Kaufman-Osborn

For those new to the executive committee, Tim recalled that PRQ was turned down by JSTOR in 1997. Tim, Ken, and Harold with support from APSA Executive Director Cathy Rudder helped to a change this. Ron Hrebenar got the contract signed! Thanks to all who made this happen.

VI. NEW BUSINESS

A. 2001/2002 Budget: Gil St. Clair

Gill handed out the spread sheet on the proposed budget 2001-2002 and noted that the association came in under budget due to careful management. Next year, travel will be more expensive because of the meetings at Boston and Denver. There was a formal motion to approve the budget report which was approved.

B. Strategy Planning Discussion: WPA Finances

This was an exploratory discussion, but the need to make decisions was noted. The primary possibility discussed for raising revenues was a sliding scale for dues as a function of income.

Michele Saint-Germain expressed a willingness to pay $5 more as a regular member to keep student rates at $15. Michael Brintnall (APSA Ex Director) observed that a sliding scale is not that bad administratively and has been well received by APSA membership.

Assessing this option will require information on membership by rank. This is the first year that there is information on program participants by rank. The Alvarez membership committee could be asked about this. The possibility of gathering field information at the time of registration was also raised.

Items to keep in mind: (1) need attractive convention locations; (2) the PRQ receives subsidies from the University of Utah and from the editors' institutions. (3) WPSA subsidizes students and retired members. (4) In terms of current dues, there is a split:

Individuals $30 dues: $14 to WPSA (47%) / $16 to PRQ
Institutions $50 dues: $10 to WPSA (20%) / $40 to PRQ

(5) The MOU between University of Utah and WPSA requires that dues increases will be jointly discussed to make sure that neither party is hurt. If the MOU were renegotiated prior to the September meeting in Boston that would aid Gil St. Clair with his budgetary calculations. Gil asked: APSA has annual increases in dues for inflation. Should WPSA also consider a periodic increment?

Other ideas included grants - seeking for technological improvements, endowments for all awards, and endowment for staff salaries.

C. Technological Advances for WPSA: Elsa Favila

Thanks to Elsa Favila for the web site. The site has allowed increased collection of dues. The association has been using a university server for free, but it will be necessary for the association to get own server in the future. The cost for a server is $6000 now, but should be lower in a couple of years. There are maintenance costs: $800-1000 initially and then $100 a month.

Exhibitor profits were close to $4000 ($2000 more than in the past) due to Elsa going to APSA and proactively recruiting publishers.

It was suggested that if we had more on teaching on the web site, it might increase traffic. This is a good idea, but the association would need to identify individuals who would take responsibility for this and then could email that information to Elsa. Another possibility is to create links to sites at APSA for mentoring, assessment, jobs. Michael Brintnall observed that the web redistributes costs rather than reducing them. One possibility to consider is requiring a membership number to access particular web sites. Council members are encouraged to compare the WPSA and APSA Web sites and communicate those ideas to Tim, Betty, and Elsa.

D. Graduate Students and WPSA: Tim Kaufman-Osborn

The graduate student participation rate ranges from 19-32%. Graduate student data for the Long Beach Convention: 188 pre-registrations: 61 from southern California, 32 from northern California, and 95 from other places.

There was a discussion of some of the issues surrounding graduate student participation. WSPA wants a reputation as friendly to graduate students, but we don't want to alienate faculty. Should the association attempt to instruct future program chairs? i.e., permitting only one graduate students on any panel; not permitting graduate students to be discussants. Ken Godwin observed that the Southwest Association has rules on graduate student participation. WPSA should consider such a rule because it is dangerous to our revenues to go over a certain percentage. Ron Hrebenar observed that there could be a poster session for graduate students in local area.

No decision was reached.

E. Association Awards: Tim Kaufman-Osborn
In order to maximize the number of papers submitted for awards given, it is critical that awards committees be appointed prior to the annual meeting. Then members can be at the conference, attend panels, and pick up papers. Committee chairs, in particular, should pick up papers at the paper room. It is also important that section chairs encourage panel chairs to assist this process.

F. Renewal of WPSA / University of Utah Memorandum of Understanding regarding PRQ: Tim Kaufman-Osborn

The MOU expires July 1st 2003. It was moved, seconded, and approved to create a committee consisting of Tim Kaufman-Osborn, Ron Hrebenar, Ken Godwin, Harold Clarke, Gil St. Clair, and Elizabeth Moulds to address this issue. The committee will meet in Boston.

G. Adjournment: the meeting adjourned at 11:45 a.m.

ATTACHMENT

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE REPORT

Prof. Tim Kaufman Osborn
President, WPSA
July 15, 2001

Dear Tim,

At the 2001 Western Meetings in Las Vegas, Friday, March 14, 2001, we had a very fruitful gathering at a panel titled. "How Can the WPSA Help the Professional Development of Its Members? In addition to over 12 attendees, at the meeting were members of the Professional Development Committee, 2000-2001: Manual Avalos, Victor James, Dan Levin, and Ron Kahn (Chair). I reported on some of the suggestions made at the 2000 WPSA meeting to illicit the views of the members attending the 2001 panel. I enclose a copy of an e-mail I sent to Ann Crigler, past President, WPSA, on July 17, 2000, which reported on ideas which resulted from a similar forum we held at the 2000 Western Meetings in San Jose.
Those attending both meetings agreed that professional development efforts by WPSA should be targeted to scholar-teachers entering the profession and mature scholar teachers who are primarily at non-Ph.D. granting departments. The WPSA might also have panels for graduate students at all schools. But the need is the greatest for the young person starting out in the profession at liberal arts colleges and non-Ph.D. granting institutions. Again, this list builds on suggestions made at the 2000 WPSA meetings. The following ideas came from the 2001 panels in no particular order:

1. A Panel or Roundtable on The First Two Years as a Teacher-Scholar. Discussion of such issues as getting through your first year of teaching; scholarship and research in the first two or three years; beginning and/or continuing networking with fellow teachers and scholars for members; the transition from scholarship as a graduate student to scholarship and writing as a faculty member; can teaching and scholarship/publication feed each other?

2. A Panel, Roundtable or Short Course on Securing Tenure: What Does My Department Want?-What Do I want?

3. A Panel or Roundtable on Getting the Most Out of Professional Meetings: How to get selected to give a paper at a professional meeting; Researching, Writing, and Presenting papers-what is the difference between a writing a paper and a published article.

4. A WPSA Mentoring System: mature teacher-scholars make themselves available to mentor younger teacher-scholars who are on campuses other than their own. This can be done by having a get- together between mentors and students at WPSA meetings and later e-mail contacts. There should be some process for selecting mentors and linking them with entering professors with regard to field and type of institution.

5. A WPSA website which announces professional talks and lectures at campuses across the West so teachers and graduate students at nearby campuses can attend.

6. Panels on Teaching: on such topics as involving students in research, teaching to a class made up of diversity of students; teaching effectiveness and "political correctness" in the classroom; making contracts clear between teacher and student on expectations; incorporating the computer in classes; possibilities and limitations of student research on the Internet; the college teacher as mentor and advisor.

At the meeting, was Michele Tracy Berger, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research at the School of Public Health, 1450 Warren Hall, Berkeley CA 94720-7360 (510 643-0919), e-mail mtbr@uclink.berkeley.edu, She was quite interested in WPSA efforts at professional development for new entries into political science, and has been involved in such efforts at her graduate school and at APSA. I think it is important to add a women and/or younger person to this committee. If you think it is wise I would be happy to attend an Executive Committee meeting, if you have one at the 2002 Westerns and at APSA to discuss these recommendations.

Sincerely yours,

Ron Kahn
2000-2001 Chair
Professional Development Committee

Some interesting ideas came up at the meeting. These include the following events/actions that the WPSA might sponsor:

1. The funding of graduate students to give papers at the Western Meetings.

2. Small research grants for faculty members at non-doctorate granting institutions.

3. List serve for Westerns with information such as scholarly talks in region.

4. Workshops for mid-career faculty on teaching and new literatures.

5. Workshops for future chairs in the region.

6. Workshops on use of computers in classroom and administration

7. Better communications for opportunities to teach course's in institutions while faculty Are on leave.

8. There was some discussion to allow long-time none Western members and meeting attenders to be on the Executive Board of the Association, to bring in ideas from across the nation and have Association be the national organization that it is. People felt that ideas on what was being done nationally and in other regions would be good for Western leadership. These would be additional seats. This would help the Western Association integrate its faculty development decisions with actions from across the nation.

9. Listing of teaching opportunities for mid-career faculty (other than Fulbright).

10. Western Association on-line web-site for region, and or list serve.

11. Panels to mentor new entries to professorate in liberal arts-colleges especially:
how to keep networks alive in non university setting.

12. Workshop on (small) grantsmanship.

13. Designation of Distinguished Professors, who would be available to lecture (and mentor colleagues) throughout the region. This would help bring in speakers to colleges and less well-endowed state institutions. There would be a Roster of Scholars (in several sub-fields) Available for (I -3) days
on Campuses.

14. The overall concern was Professional Development of faculty in liberal arts colleges and small private and public institutions are not Ph.D. granting institutions. How can the Western Association aid in networking, mentoring, and bringing distinguished senior and junior faculty to such schools-so both faculty and students can gear and meet with them?

15. Finally, workshops a day before the Westerns on some of these issues of concern to entering, mid-career, and senior faculty.